


the hurly burly of the chaise-longue

by oonaseckar



Category: Frederica - Georgette Heyer
Genre: Etiquette, F/M, Implied handjob, Obscure and British Commentfest, Public Sex, marital discord, marital sex, sexual etiquette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-25
Updated: 2014-05-25
Packaged: 2018-01-26 12:56:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,363
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1689107
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oonaseckar/pseuds/oonaseckar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alverstoke and Frederica have a disagreement over appropriate procedure while a lady is dressing, leading to a resolution during dinner at their country estate.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the hurly burly of the chaise-longue

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Mrs Patrick Campbell's quote about, 'the deep deep peace of the marriage bed, after the hurly burly of the chaise-longue'. The chaise-longue is entirely fictitious as far as this fic is concerned, but there is indeed some hurly burly involved.
> 
> William Blake reference.
> 
> Frederica, the greatest Heyer there ever was, but it's been a long time and I am a mite rusty. I hope there are not too many inaccuracies pertaining to the novel due to my eagerness to post.
> 
> Written for the 2014 Obscure and British Multifandom Commentfest on Livejournal, for the prompt, 'etiquette' from jaxomsride.

Alverstoke was insufferable, _insufferable._ Not that that was news, or the least manner of surprise, to his lady wife. Or at the very least, it was so no longer, not after eighteen months of wedlock.

The honeymoon might have sported the odd shock, or two. Or three or four or umpteen more than she could count. Not all of them unpleasant, no: not by any means. Frederica did not account herself a discontented wife. And indeed she had no need to count her blessings, as less fortunate folk were oft-times forced to do.

Frederica was much beyond shock at this late date in her matrimonial history. But not beyond disapproval, oh no. 

'Alverstoke,' she remonstrated, peeking from behind her dressing-screen. She watched her husband, as he quite idly, wilfully poked, prodded and explored around her dressing-room. 'It is not at all seemly for you to roam about in here, like some manner of wild beast. At least not while I am dressing. You will put Higgs quite out of temper.'

But Higgs, her lady's maid, did not at all play along with this polite fiction. No, not even in service of the cause. (That is, the cause of ejecting Alverstoke from the environs of her mistress' delicate and frilly feminine domain). 

'It don't bother me, milady,' she announced stolidly, gathering up a chemise and handing it over the screen for Frederica to try on. 'If his lordship wants to make hisself at home, and read Ackermann's while we get you booted and gartered, it's no skin off my nose. Would you like me to ring the bell for Dobbs and have a glass of Madeira brought up for you before dinner, my lord?'

Alverstoke was busy settling himself in the corner chair, and too distracted removing feminine items, stockings and bows and hair-combs, to pay her heed a minute. But then he came to, as he succeeded in clearing himself a manly free area and seating his rear end, and having attention to spare. 'Hm? Oh – capital. Yes, an excellent idea, Higgs. My love, do you wish for the same, or would you sooner have barley water? And Freddie, my love, while you are trying on the lavendar stockings, I do think you might give me a glimpse. That I might accord, or withhold, my husbandly approval, you know.'

'Alverstoke, this is exactly what I am complaining about!' Frederica expostulated at him, face reddening at his teases. Certainly not backing slightly out from behind the screen, in order to flip her legs out quickly backward, facilitating his viewing of the really lovely curve from knee to ankle, delicate as a gazelle and strong as a girder. Or quite accidentally, at any rate.

Disapproval was a state swiftly regained, however, especially as Higgs was such a love. She could maintain an oblivious façade no matter what working conditions she endured. Higgs would undoubtedly maintain admirable composure under fire. Given a flying visit from Boney himself, she would be climbing over the gardener's boys, as they fired pot-shots from behind the ha-ha in the maze-garden, and offering the Little Corporal a glass of something, too. On principle, since he qualified as a guest in the house.

As Higgs joined her behind the screen for some gentle lacing of the short stays, Frederica found voice again. 'I have very few complaints of you, you know that, Alverstoke! You have been a most attentive new husband to me, these past many months, I am sure there could not be a kinder. But now that we are an old married couple, and the bloom is off the rose, I am sure I would not mind if you suffered a little tedium in marital pursuits. If you, perhaps, began to devote more of your time to manly pastimes: off at your club, hunting, fishing, perhaps a little gaming. I would not mind _at all!_ '

Alverstoke discarded his journal at that point, tossing it to float down onto the chamber floor, his face amazed. 'The _bloom off the rose?_ Good God, Freds, is that how you talk to me? A fine wifely thing to say to a man, when all he is wishing to do is express a little spousal affection, to trail his worldly chattel around in her humdrum feminine routines. Off the rose! I apologise without reservation for boring you, my darling, with excessive quantities of my company: perhaps it would inconvenience you less if I took a mistress, and you were excused the still more disagreeable aspects of wifely duty, in addition?'

Frederica stilled absolutely at that: and so did Higgs' hands on her lacings, proving without a doubt that there was nothing at all wrong with the darling woman's ears, whatever incapacity and debility she chose to evince, of necessity, in the service of the Marquis and Marquise. And in the moment of ear-splitting silence that followed, she chose to find urgent errand on the other side of the room, fiddling with bows and hair-pins endlessly, on the French dressing table that did not at all need any fiddling with.

This while Alverstoke, Fifth Marquis of Alverstoke at that, leapt to the outermost edge of the dressing screen, and pulled his wife out to meet him, half-dressed hair and semi-dressed form be damned. There was a hurt look on her face that she was most tautly holding in. But he was a rather long way from being a fool: except in the middle of casual marital spats and banter. 'My love,' he said urgently, 'it was only a joke. An extremely feeble one, perhaps, but not more than that. And seriously, my darling: do you think I am about to excuse you any aspect of those duties at any imminent date?' With that she was pinched, thoroughly, and on regions of her anatomy that would have been covered, had she only been allowed to attend to her state of _deshabillé._

Perhaps Frederica's lower lip trembled just a moment more: but she was, after all, a household general, a family matriarch. What she was _not_ , was a gentle dieaway creature, to begin snivelling over a careless word. And that, from a husband who only needed a little reining in and keeping in check, a measure of discipline, to be accounted quite satisfactory in all respects. She pushed him back out from the edge of the screen, back into the room to his chair. Not, however, before he could steal a kiss, and a squeeze with it.

And with his exit, Higgs' sudden urgent errand was miraculously done, and Frederica's stays had a chance to be laced, and Higgs a chance to make the fifth Marquise a vision, ready to greet her guests.

It would all have been speedier, and quieter, and more convenient, without the accompaniment of the Marquis himself. But the man had no more respect for convention or etiquette now, with more than a year of the marital yoke to break him in, than he'd ever displayed before the ceremony. Even Frederica couldn't tame and train him out of all his bad habits. He was obdurate, he would not be turfed out. And Higgs, deaf or no, had never heard yet a word of complaint out of the Marquise, or not one that convinced her of its sincerity.

xxx

A very dull evening at the card table, then, during their country retreat, with Charis, Endymion and the boys away at Brighton, taking in the sea air. Less dull if they hadn't had the local parson to dinner and cards, and his perpetually jawing old-maid sister, and the local grandees who were anything but. But _noblesse oblige_ , and one does what one must. 

Or, more accurately, Alverstoke had never in fact seen the least reason to do what the _ton_ or the local gentry considered one must. But now he was a married man and must bow the knee, and Frederica was, it turned out, a stickler for the refined tortures of the countrified social round, when they took a break from the Season and the Continent. 

It was a hard life being a peon, a slave to the desires of the legal yoke about his neck, from the pretty dressings in her light brown hair to the rounded toes of her satin slippers. Yet Alverstoke did not complain, nor repine. He would, after all, finally have riddance of all unwelcome guests and garrulous country gentry. And then bathing before his bed, idle chat with his manservant in his dressing-room as he washed and disrobed, and finally dismissing the man, before knocking upon the partitioned door to the shared chamber. 

Twenty years of being the roaring scandal of the _ton_ , and now there was nothing sweeter than this for the fifth Marquis. He found he loved the orderly process, the prescribed routine, all of the ritualistic lead-up. And then folding himself up into Frederica's slightly drowsy arms, at the end of a trying and tiring day of the social round. Sweeter than that, nights she roused herself out of slumber to clamber over him, night-dress disappearing over her head without the least ceremony. All that, as she eye'd him sly, and put into practice a few of the things he'd taught her on their prolonged Italian trip, after the wedding. 

Frederica was an apt pupil: and had off her own bat come up with a few interesting and most edifying curlicues and wrinkles, to Alverstoke's quite extensive repertoire of athletic games of love. He had not thought he had yet anything to learn. But of course if any neophyte could manage it, then it was Frederica.

But all of it, sweet and tender and piercing, cherished and jealously guarded by him, was of an orderly and prescribed nature, without the carelessness and abandon of his bachelor days. He did not regret it, not at all. How amused the _ton_ were, to witness his complete transformation into uxorious husband and prospective father, a respectable and predictable pillar of the social order. He revelled in it, and did not care a whit who knew.

And at this point it did not even surprise him, though others perhaps still a little, just how little he resented being press-ganged into a countrified five-course dinner out in the sticks. Even one with the local parson on one side and Mrs Jeffers, the relict of an Admiral of the Fleet, on the other. And Freddie down at the other end of the long table, damn her. Smirking at him, while Mr Haythorn, the parson, droned on sonorously about altar boys and sermonizing. Vernon's eyelids drooped despite his best efforts, until the butler coughed vigorously, and set the salt cellar down on the table, unnecessarily hard. 

Although now and then, betimes, he did think that a man putting in such hard service in the pleasing of his beloved, must surely expect to earn a very significant reward indeed. Which thought the Marquise no doubt picked up from his excessively patient expression, since she excused herself from her set place, and rose. Not to invite the ladies to retire, nor for a maidenly retreat or to instruct the servants. But rather to sweep elegantly down the length of the table, and pull in a little decorative _chaise_ between the parson's seat and his own. Mr Haythorn, a little startled, gave ground, and edged his chair to the side, politely.

'I must consult with my husband,' she told the assembled table, 'on the development of a new scheme for the water garden, while I think on it. Alverstoke, my love,' she said, turning to him with a stilly poised mannequin grace. Her face was so composed, yet he could see the mischief fighting to erupt from her light grey eyes. 'Do not you think that gravel beats out decorative paving, considering that we have cypress in the grounds, and the colours will complement each other?'

All very well, Alverstoke thought, the convoluted enquiry, the gentle prod of marital chit-chat. Quite a different matter, an outrage and a breach of all decorum, the gentle lean of her body into the extensive folds of a snowy linen tablecloth. Her flowers and the greenery of the table decorations blocking out the vision of their guests as her hand... well... strayed. A convulsive jerk, and his head almost flew back, rotating a little, before he remembered, with a violent sigh of relief, that no footman nor butler was stationed behind them. But still, in any case, anyone, any servant or guest might at any moment choose to rise or walk into the room or...

It was terrible, really. Absolutely _unforgivable_ , the most egregious breach of all established proprieties and decencies, and the etiquette that the normal social order and civilised circles required, the quite reasonable expectations of peers and underlings. And Alverstoke fought to maintain an impassive and unperturbed demeanour, despite his dear wife's apparent complete absence of understanding of all the normal proprieties that society expected and rigidly enforced. But, he vowed to himself, there would certainly be a reckoning. Oh dear Lord yes, in their bedchamber, once he had her to himself...

'You see, Mr Haythorn,' Freddie said quite calmly to the parson, turning her head only a little away from Alverstoke to address the man, while subtly and invisibly continuing some very indiscreet and untoward ministrations, 'my husband began this discussion with me earlier – while I was dressing for dinner, you understand. But I sent him away with a flea in his ear – did I not, Alverstoke – because it is most indecorous to disturb a lady at her _toilette_ , is it not? Especially when she has repeatedly advised you how it distracts her and her maid from their endeavours. And thus, now the notion has entered my head, I must therefore continue my train of thought from earlier in the day, lest I forget and the opportunity be ever lost.' The parson looked perhaps a little puzzled. But he nodded along agreeably with his hostess, just the same.

'Very true, milady. Seize the moment, indeed, and, er, _kiss joy as it flies_. And certainly observance of the social mores to which we all must subscribe, and respect for established etiquette, and most certainly obeisance to a lady's wishes, is all part of the compact and the understanding that holds our little world together, in a blessed and Christian amity and unity.' He nodded solemnly, and Frederica looked perhaps a little glazed, turned back to her husband once more. It was admirable, however, even Alverstoke was forced to concede, how she could, quite without strain, do two things at once. There had been no let up in the discreet torture, and he was not sure that the fine, strong tailor's stitching of his trousers could much longer withstand the strain.

'Now, Alverstoke,' she addressed him, 'what was it that I intended to complete saying to you? Ah, yes,' she concluded, smiling with divine sweetness – Alverstoke was most attached to that smile. Except right at this moment, when it seemed to betoken a very demon from the depths of a sneaky, underhand, infernally cruel hell. 'Only that I am sure you understand now,' - yes – that was the spot, the very spot he'd taught her, and she had learnt most exquisitely, damn her very sweet and loved eyes, laughing at him right that minute. ' – how important even the small observances, the delicate etiquette between spouses is, and how very much deliberate distractions detract from my dressing and preparations to be chatelaine of your household, mistress of your estates, and a meet spouse to you, my darling. I _appreciate in advance_ your observance of my wishes in this respect.' 

'And not only that, my darling - ' And Alverstoke's hand tightened upon his glass, until he relaxed it consciously, because he was about to break it and send shards flying over the white linen and silverware in a very little moment. ' – but,' Frederica assured him earnestly – that tilt of the head that showed off her pretty throat, and dammit, had she not bothered with so much as a _fichu_ at her bosom this night? It was a _country dinner_ , for God's sake, not a fashionable late supper in town, with half the women putting their teats on display for the milking, and lowing at any fine stud bull that passed by! But no, her pretty breasts all on display, near enough, and quite close enough to touch, not to speak of flaunted under the gaze of every man present. Never mind they were all old dotards like the parson or the hoary old red-faced General cat-a-corner from him.

'But,' she said again – that glint in her eye, and yes, she knew exactly what she was doing, and by God he would tan her arse this night if he swung or was divorced for it. And not for her own amusement either, like the couple of times before. ' – I want you to know, my love, that I will accord you the same respect. Alverstoke, I promise,' she said, leaning just a little closer with her little pink lips parting, hypnotizingly, as she spoke, 'I will be very careful to stop _distracting_ you.'

A final squeeze, and swivel, and a little flick with the thumb that _oh good God Freddie_ , even through fine starched linen could have brought him off there and then, and what a pretty pickle _that_ would have been at the dinner table, with the parson from the living in his gift, and the host of charming shabbily aristocratic biddies and buffers at their table. And with that final emphasis Lady Alverstoke rose swiftly from her happenstance chair – leant to bestow a very soft kiss upon her husband's temple – and swept, regal as a queen, with her little head held high on her proud neck, back to her own given seat at the other end of the table.

Leaving Alverstoke, yes, quite undistracted, finally. He was regally enthroned at the head of the table, magisterially glowering at the assembled host of his guests. And hard and aching enough, beneath linen and drawers, to make a show and a vision of himself before the gentry of the county, should he be called upon to stand and attend to some household emergency requiring the attention of the master of the house. What an _outrage._ Oh, his Frederica had given him a lesson on etiquette, this night, all right. And would pay for it in a very few short hours. 

He struggled to pay attention to Sir Thomas on his other side, who had seized the opportunity of his available attention to embark again upon the saga of his Indian sojourn and the trophies of his rifle. And seized an opportunity himself, when everyone else at table seemed fully taken up with one subject and interlocutor or the other, faces turned away. He caught his lady wife's, his darling love's eye, clear down the length of the snowy linen, and drew a finger across his throat, with a very meaning glare into her bright, amused eyes.

And watched as she gritted her teeth, nodding politely at that old duffer general as he bored on, and struggled with the pretty laughter that was most undoubtedly welling up behind her studiedly composed visage.

He did love to hear Frederica laugh. 

However. _Etiquette_ , forsooth.

xxx

A good five hours later, certain shrieks might have been heard beyond the doors of the master and mistress of Alverstoke's marital bedchamber, emitted from beneath the writhing bedcovers of the great four-poster. They were not those of passion: those had come earlier.

No, Frederica, fifth Marquise of Alverstoke, was in gusts and gales and painful paroxysms of laughter. She was convulsing with it, such that the Marquis had to hold her down, calming and reproving, at the same time as giving his lady-wife a good talking-to.

'...no respect for my _manly authority_ , no respect for etiquette, woman, damn you, Frederica, will you cease laughing and listen to me, no, madam, a kiss will not excuse you from this terrible breach, you are a scandal and a hissing, my lady, I tell you straight that...'

It only made her laugh the more.


End file.
